


Leaves in Autumn

by magicasen



Category: Tsukihime
Genre: Angst, F/F, Femslash February, Post-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 18:57:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/665337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicasen/pseuds/magicasen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every day, Kohaku goes to her in the room where time has stopped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaves in Autumn

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after Akiha's Normal End. That should be your warning for angst.

If Kohaku were asked to choose a favorite season, the answer, she thought, would have to be summer. Its overwhelming brightness made practiced smiles and laughs come with ease, as if in an attempt to try and match the radiance around them. 

That’s why it was strange; it was the middle of July and Kohaku needed to keep reminding herself of the season. It should have been nearly impossible to forget, with the sweltering heat weighing on her and the pesky mosquitoes needing to be swatted away at all hours of the day. Yet she still couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Summer was supposed to be brimming with warmth and energy, enough to inspire even a doll. There was nothing of that spark of life this year. She would go through her daily routine, but it was different now, being unable to feel a touch of the summer cheer she had once maybe been fond of. She didn't feel remorse at the thought – dolls couldn’t have emotions, after all – but Kohaku still found herself wondering if she would ever experience a summer day again. 

She already knew the answer to that question, though. For her and the girl, time had stopped last autumn, on that fateful day at the end of October. 

“Good morning!” Kohaku said as she stepped out of her sandals and pulled the screen door shut behind her, balancing a tea tray in one of her hands. Kohaku would normally leave the door open to air the place out, but it was better that the room be shut off from the bugs that its inhabitant would not bother shielding herself from. 

The girl sat facing the side, such that her profile stood sharply against the beige walls around her. It should have been a striking image, with her clear blue eyes and crimson hair, yet she managed to be inconspicuous. No matter how many times Kohaku saw her like this, she was always taken aback by the lack of a furrowed brow or the perpetual pout that followed when her mistress was concentrating. A frown that would morph into a smile as she turned, recognition and fondness flashing in her eyes as she returned her servant’s greeting. 

There was no such response today. Much as it had been for nearly the past year, there was no indication that the girl had even noticed Kohaku’s entrance. She sat perfectly still, not even blinking as she faced the wall, staring at nothing. 

“I made roasted barley tea today,” Kohaku continued as she sat the tray down next to the girl. “When I woke up, it was already over thirty degrees, and it’ll probably heat up even more in the afternoon. You're always holed up in here too, so I thought it’d be best to go for something cool and refreshing!” Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears. The tea remained untouched. Kohaku kneeled next to the girl and watched her.

She wasn’t sure why she did any of it, still. Fretting over the type of tea to brew in the morning, wondering if she would like it, which kind would make her happiest. Repeating the same motions every day when there was no longer a point (and she paused at that thought, because there never was supposed to have been a point). She had accepted, the first day that she had seen the girl, that she wasn’t there anymore. There was no trace of her proud, hard-headed and easily flustered mistress, who would much rather scold and admonish than show how much she cared or worried. What remained here was...a doll. And that thought made Kohaku…not uncomfortable, because that wasn’t possible, but it made her question. Why was Kohaku allowed to move, and talk, and even smile and the girl wasn’t, when their hearts were the same? 

Kohaku shook her head but couldn’t suppress a grimace at her thoughts. Questioning life’s contradictions and inconsistencies was a futile, unnecessary effort. There was nothing worse than such an action for a doll. “Here, it should be quite hot in that yukata. Let’s get you washed up and changed,” Kohaku said. She picked up the tea tray and set it on a side table before making her way over to the faucet in the adjoining room and filling a wooden basin with water. Shiki had reluctantly agreed to reinstall running water in the outhouse when Kohaku had asked about it. She remembered how conflicted he looked, wanting to answer that it shouldn’t be needed, with the unspoken hope that she would return soon and be annoyed at the unnecessary labor and waste of resources. That had been eight months ago. 

The girl was in the same position when she returned. Kohaku laid out a mat and set to undressing her. She did not flinch or make any other involuntary movements as her obi was unrolled around her waist and her koshihimo was untied. After setting the articles aside, Kohaku began pushing the garment off of her shoulders, easing her into a lying position as she opened the yukata and exposed the naked body underneath. She avoided the girl’s eyes that gazed at the ceiling as she pulled arms out of sleeves and lifted her back so that her clothing could be removed and her body could be shifted over to the mat. 

_Her body really is frail_ , Kohaku thought as she ran a sponge over the pale skin. It was only natural. She had been a high-class lady, more occupied with matters of family politics and finance, and even, sometimes, with music or writing, than being outside or in a dojo. Even though she no longer ate Kohaku’s cooking, or drank her tea, the girl’s body remained the same size and shape as it had before. That was the only part of her that remained, because back then she surely would have gone deep red and become speechless, then aghast at how her body was being bathed by her servant. She had always been frighteningly protective of her dignity, holding it in higher regard than almost anything else. That was why Kohaku distracted herself with idle thoughts every time she did this, trying to ignore how smooth and soft the girl’s skin was, or how delicate she looked as she lay bare in front of her. Kohaku was her servant, so there shouldn’t have been anything to be embarrassed about, yet she was sure that her mistress would never have wanted to be so exposed around anyone. _Except Shiki-san_ , her mind supplied, and Kohaku's hand gripped the sponge and her body grew icy-cold for an instant in the midst of the unbearable heat. Kohaku pushed away the unnecessary thought, forcing her mind blank for the next several moments as she finished washing, drying, and redressing the girl in a fresh yukata.

Kohaku watched as the girl resumed her previous position. “Ah, your hair is all mussed now. That won’t do!” After a moment of silence, she stood and picked up a brush from the side table before taking a place behind the girl. She did not react when Kohaku lifted some of her long, flowing strands of hair, letting them drape over her fingers. 

She gathered a handful of hair and began running the brush through it, from the top of the head to the tips of the strands, repeating the familiar motion as her mind wandered. The hair was vibrant and beautiful, but the shade made it hard to forget how unnatural and doll-like the girl was. 

She didn’t know why thinking of the girl as a doll made her feel so uneasy. If anything, it should make things easier. One did not feel pity for a doll. 

When she had been released from Makihisa, she had stolen her sister’s personality to continue living. The Kohaku from before that, though, was no longer. If she accepted that this girl truly was a doll, that meant that whoever had been there before was gone as well. There should have been some sort of relief or feeling of accomplishment at that thought. A doll moved in order to achieve its purpose, and Kohaku had done so by finally taking revenge on the last of the Tohno. 

After a doll's purpose was fulfilled, there no longer existed a reason to move. Yet no matter how many times Kohaku told herself that everything was over, she couldn't believe that there really was a reason to stop. It was unfair. Kohaku should have been set free from the maddening revenge that drove her these past eight years. What a cruel twist of fate that the only one of the Tohno who had not hindered her in life would stop her now. _It would have been better if you had died_. Her knuckles were white and her nails dug deeply into her palm. _Shiki-san was cowardly. He refused to kill you and wouldn't even die for your sake._

Kohaku knew that there was no way that Shiki could have ever brought himself to kill his beloved sister. Then, he should have sacrificed himself for her. No, that wasn’t quite right. A sacrifice implied that Shiki was giving part of himself away. Here, it would have simply been returning a borrowed life to the one who had given it to him in the first place. Then, she would still be here, and Kohaku wouldn't feel so empty, and wasn't that laughable, that Kohaku felt something missing and it left a wide, gaping hole in her chest, even when she knew there was nothing there to being with.

That was how things should have turned out that night. But they hadn't, and she was even denied the proper death she deserved. The girl's soul died long ago, but she had left behind a miserable, physical husk. One that reminded Kohaku too much of herself. Out of everyone, she was the one who didn’t deserve such a fate. Kohaku had shed her own soul out of necessity, but the girl had lost hers, and that was a fate worse than death. 

“I didn’t hate you. I never hated you.” The girl took no notice of Kohaku’s brittle voice, or the way her hand shook uncontrollably as she ran the brush through her hair. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” It wasn't how it should have happened, and it shouldn't have mattered how it happened, but it did. How many times had Kohaku played the scenario over and over in her mind? It had been such a vivid image. She would have died heroically, sacrificing her own life in protecting others and never realizing her own servant's treachery. Then, Kohaku would take her own life, finally finding peace at the end of the world.

That couldn’t happen anymore. She was gone, but Kohaku could not, would not die. The idea felt wrong. All Kohaku knew, even if she didn’t really understand why, was that she was not allowed to release herself from her own shell and leave behind the girl's memory behind to fester. Kohaku had not planned for this, had never imagined long, tortuous months without her and without a purpose. The thought of living out the rest of her life in this state of nothingness was almost enough to cause her to go mad. It tore at her from the inside-out, from that place where a human would have a heart. The feeling wasn’t heartbreak, but more as if the seams holding her together were about to burst and her body would remain shattered. 

Then she would be just like the girl, and Kohaku wondered if that maybe wasn't such a bad thing.

The brush clattered to the floor, and Kohaku gasped, shaken. The girl gave no sign of acknowledging the disturbance as Kohaku picked it back up. She couldn’t bring herself to look at her, even though her face was turned away. Kohaku set the brush aside and fixed her eyes on the floor beside the girl. 

“You must be hungry. Shiki-san is probably just sleeping in.” Her voice faltered as she strained to keep the pitch light and cheerful. “Pretty irresponsible of him, isn’t it? I’ll go ask Hisui-chan to send for him.”

She didn’t run away from the girl. There was no reason to think as if she were being judged by something that could no longer feel. But Kohaku still came back to herself standing outside the room, face turned upwards, her thoughts racing and her limbs trembling. 

There was the sun, shining brightly. There were the flowers, blooming at the height of their beauty. There were the birds, singing clear and loud.

 _It’s summer_ , she lied.


End file.
